AUSTRALIAN MEDIA NEWS:

Tensions within the Murdoch media’s national broadshit The Australian boiled over this week when a meeting of its far right-wing columnists resolved to complain to management about the work of the newest recruit to their ranks, former ABC TV and Nine Network political reporter Chris Uhlmann.

A source within The Australian who did not wish to be sacked said the cause of the conflict could be traced directly to Uhlmann’s addition to the paper’s editorial staff.

“All of The Australian’s far-right wing columnists have felt threatened by Chris since he arrived in April,” the source said. “Sorry for the tautology. That should have been ‘all of The Australian‘s columnists’.

“But anyway, as recently reported by The Bug (below) it was Greg Sheridan (inset below) who first ended up in a physical confrontation with Chris –  both former seminarians – when he wrote a totally impenetrable column which I think was about the failure of most western world governments to be the Catholic Church.

“Greg was upset that Chris was muscling in on his territory as the columnist who regularly writes lengthy pieces preaching about the need for more of the world’s population to adhere to the morals and teachings of the world’s biggest employer and protector of kiddie-fiddlers.

“But last Saturday the shit really hit the fan when Chris’s latest column questioning the science of climate change was published in The Weekend Oz. (below)

“Nick Cater in particular went apeshit and started complaining loudly that just because he had recently shifted his owns columns more towards being half-page ads for the Liberal Party’s nuclear power policy, it didn’t mean Chris could assume that the role of bagging climate science was fair game.

“To some extent Nick has the upper hand because he is chair of the in-house staff representative group The Australian Righters’ Guild – not to be confused with the Australian Writers’ Guild.

“He called a meeting of all far-right wing columnists and commentators employed by The Australian at the Sydney Entertainment Centre (main picture)

“While not all of them could fit into the centre and needed to attend virtually, the meeting voted unanimously to support a motion calling on The Australian’s editor-in-chief Michelle Gunn to rein in Chris to make sure he doesn’t continue to tread on the toes of his colleagues.

“The motion called on Gunn to direct Chris to write about some aspect of Australian life or public policy that the paper currently isn’t portraying as a problem caused directly by the Albanese Government.

“Nobody could think of what that might be, although someone suggested the nation’s public litter problem could be sheeted back to the Labor Party.”

The source said one of those at the meeting who spoke to the motion was Peta Credlin who offered a more direct approach.

“Peta said – and I quote – ‘Let me handle it. I’ll shirtfront Chris. You bet you are. You bet I am.’

“But the meeting preferred to leave it to the editor-in-chief to sort out. So the ball is in Michelle’s court,” the source said.

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